


Hell of a Day

by anticyclone



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-22 14:40:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9611876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticyclone/pseuds/anticyclone
Summary: "I didn't-" Liam stopped himself and pressed his palms together. He wasn't wearing gloves, but his hands looked rough, two-months-into-winter chapped. The thin silver ring he always wore on his left hand must have been freezing. "I didn't have a lot of time."





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TadpoleGlee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TadpoleGlee/gifts).



Liam's hand closed around Jason's wrist, and he sighed, dropping the screwdriver he'd just picked up. His lips soundlessly formed the words just a split second ahead of Liam. It had been the same question the last fourteen times. "The actual fuck is wrong with you?"

"I don't know," Jason said. He gave Liam the widest smile he could manage - which was slightly less impressive than usual, the right half of his face being one oversized bruise. "How about you tell me?"

"I  _ know  _ what you're about to do."

"You would," Jason reasoned. He gave his wrist a gentle shake, and Liam reluctantly let go. Great, now that hurt too.

Slowly, Jason turned around. He lowered himself onto the edge of his work bench. In front of him Jason crossed his arms over his broad chest and scowled. He looked very intimidating: a sleek black winter coat, snow boots, what might have actually been an ice pick dangling from his belt. The chronometer on his arm blinked black and green under a layer of frost that was rapidly beginning to drip onto Jason's garage floor. He looked at the melting ice, and then at Liam's scowl, and then at the window in the wall at their side. The scene outside was the same as it had been all week. Sunny, clear, and about ninety-seven degrees.

"I didn't-" Liam stopped himself and pressed his palms together. He wasn't wearing gloves, but his hands looked rough, two-months-into-winter chapped. The thin silver ring he always wore on his left hand must have been freezing. "I didn't have a lot of time."

"I must have been about to fuck up real good then."

"You have  _ no idea?" _

"Like I said. Tell me." Jason spread his hands, which made the corner of Liam's eye twitch. Jason still hadn't figured out precisely what year Liam had been born (he would eventually - he had the time), but he did enjoy picking up on the man's gestures and turning them inside out. Liam still hadn't picked up on it enough to stop that irritating palms-together thing.

"I thought we were past - What happened to your face?"

Jason shut his eyes and named several deities, the oldest of whom he'd once met in person, if people claiming to be demigods could be believed about that sort of thing. "I got on the wrong side of a couple of my regular suppliers." He gestured at the device taking up most of the garage. The idea had been to send messages back and forth through time, which Liam and his crew could absolutely do and were so unbelievably stingy about explaining. But like everything else… Jason had time. What he had needed - and not managed to procure - was a few tiny grains of nuclear fuel.

But Liam didn't ask about that. He probably knew what Jason was trying to build. Hell, for all Jason knew he was making the prototype of the tiny thing embedded in Liam's ear. Liam didn't ask what kind of suppliers, though. He just stared, lips slightly parted, skin gone ashen.

"What day is it?"

Jason leaned back. His heart was starting to sink into his stomach. He gave Liam a long, hard look, but the man held still, waiting. The time traveler. Asking  _ him  _ what day it was. "2089, July 3."

Liam checked his chronometer. Then he exhaled through his teeth. But he didn't say:  _ I missed it.  _ Instead he said: "Get your coat."

Both of Jason's eyebrows shot up. "Excuse me?"

"You're going to need your coat." He reached forward and latched onto Jason's wrist again, tugging him to his feet. His hand was still cold. Jason stumbled in the door leading from the garage to the house. The air inside bit at his sweaty skin. He tried to pull his wrist back, but Liam clenched his fingers. Forget his heart sinking: now Jason's stomach was at his feet. It felt less like he'd stepped from summer into an air-conditioned home and more like he'd been shoved into a freezer.

He did manager to latch onto the doorway leading to his bedroom. Liam, who had tracked mud and road salt all over his floors, stopped to turn around and stare at him. "I realize that you think that I have an endless amount of time to waste," he started.

"You do, though."

" _ I  _ age," Liam snapped. Some of the color rushed back to his face. " _ I  _ have a limited amount of seconds and arguing with you about appropriate winter clothing is  _ not  _ how I want to spend  _ any  _ of them. You're coming back with me, Jason."

"You - you can't pull me out of the timeline like that." It felt like his whole body was pulsing in time with his heartbeat. At this point he wasn't sure if he was terrified or elated Time travel was the one thing he thought he'd never be able to coax out of Liam, the one thing he could work on that Liam would _ always  _ yank away from him no matter  _ how  _ close they got.

But he'd also kind of assumed it was for a reason. Like, how many time-traveling immortals does it take to implode the time-space continuum, or something.

"It's for your own good!"

"But the p-"

"You can  _ handle  _ paradoxes, we've proven that. Put on your goddamn coat, Jason."

He let go of the doorway and stomped over to the closet. Flinging open the door, he made a gesture at the racks of t-shirts. With Liam frowning, he pulled out the one sweatshirt he owned: blue, with a green alligator grinning on the chest. "I live in Florida, I don't  _ own  _ a coat!"

Liam's eye twitched, and he pressed both his palms together. Jason felt like slapping them apart. "One day, I'm going to learn what I did to deserve this assignment," he whispered.

***

How may time-traveling immortals does it take to implode the time-space continuum?

Well, more than just Jason.

***

Jason liked to think of himself as fairly sturdy. Sure, he wasn't broad and stocky and made of muscle like Liam, but he also held his own when he did get into fistfights. So he wasn't entirely sure how to take it when they popped from his living room into a white room and all he could see was the tile floor because he couldn't get up from his knees.

His forehead pressed against the tile. He took deep breaths and concentrated on not throwing up. It took a long couple minutes of the room spinning around him to realize that Liam's hand was running through his hair. "Keep breathing, c'mon," he murmured. "That's it."

"I'm-" Jason squeezed his eyes shut. His intestines were protesting his attempt at speech. He had to give it another minute of being  _ petted  _ before he could try again. "I'm - unlikely to stop."

Liam curled his hand over the back of Jason's neck. His fingers didn't feel so cold anymore. "A complete sentence! Great! You want to try standing up next?"

As a matter of fact, he did not. He wanted to lay flat and go to sleep. But he let Liam yank him to his feet. The room they were in was stark and wide enough to hold four people side-by-side. There was a white door in front of them, and a person standing in it.

If Liam hadn't been holding him up with an arm around his waist, Jason would've fallen back to the floor.

He was standing in the doorway.

It was  _ him. _

Him, wearing a coat.

The other Jason glanced from his face to Liam's. Liam swallowed audibly. "You did tell me July 3. I know you did," he said.

"You  _ know  _ me?" Jason asked. His head throbbed. He wondered if he really could handle paradoxes as well as Liam thought.

Jason nodded at Liam. Or at him. Or at both of them.

"You said that you were going to piss off someone badly enough for there to be actual, literal nuclear fallout, and I had to go back to July 3 to stop it," Liam went on. His cheeks were turning red. "So why did I find you  _ already  _ beaten up if I was supposed to keep you from-"

"I didn't tell you to stop me," the other Jason said, shrugging. Was that what his face looked like when he was being smug? It was insufferable. No wonder Liam was constantly threatening him with bodily and temporal harm. "I told you to stop the fallout. Bringing me here for…" He paused, lips moving noiselessly for a moment. "...Three days. Three days should do it."

"You're just going to send me back to July 6?"

"We will, in three days. I remember how sick you're going to be in about twenty minutes, so we're not putting you through that again right away." The other him smiled and waved them through the door with his left hand.

The other him, in addition to wearing a coat, was also wearing a thin silver ring on his left hand.

Jason leaned into Liam. "You have  _ so much  _ to tell me."


End file.
